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l5/)e So\ith in the 



Olden Timetititiii 



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By J. L. M. CVRRY 



The South 
in the Olden Time 



J. L.Mf CURRY 



[From Publications of Southern History Association, 
January, 1901.] 



Harrisburg, Pa. : 

Harrisburg Publishing Company 

1901 



THE SOUTH IN THE OLDEN TIME. 

Bv J. L. ^I. Curry. 

Probably no people nor institutions have been more 
misunderstood than those of the Southern States. One 
need not go far to find the cause. Southern books and 
newspapers are little read. Their circulation is mainly- 
local and provincial. The war between the States so un- 
expectedly protracted, the terrible casualties connected 
therewith, involving so many families, political antagon- 
isms, and the discolored and exaggerated statements in 
fiction and more serious literature and in partisan 
speeches, have prevented the calm investigation and the 
sound judgment given to other questions which have not 
so much sentimentality. One speech in the Senate pre- 
cipitated a war with Spain. One novel was largely in- 
strumental in exciting the Northern mind to a determina- 
tion of "no Union with slaveholders." 

Unanimous Satisfaction Over Abolition. 

The South retained the "peculiar institution" of Afri- 
can slavery, fastened on her against her protests, while 
the North, where it existed in every State at the time of 
the Declaration of Independence, 1776, liberated herself 
from it more than half a century ago. The "institution" 
for many reasons became so incorporated in the social, 
political and industrial life of the South that its sever- 
ance, by slow and natural causes, was almost an impos- 
sibility. Property interests, pride of opinion, jealousy of 
alien interference, resistance to aspersions and aggres- 
sions, consolidated the South and induced action which 
under other conditions would have been the very reverse. 
That is made plain by the unanimity which now exists of 



satisfaction at abolition, of unwillingness at any cost to 
have the negroes reenslaved, and of the depth of con- 
viction that slave labor, instead of being a benefit, was 
the prolific parent of a thousand evils. 

Southern Civilization. 

The marked civilization which distinguished the South 
was not altogether due to slavery, but unquestionably it 
largely contributed to the creation and maintenance of 
certain social peculiarities which are rapidly disappearing. 
In proportion to the whole white population the slave- 
holders were few in number, and of those who owned 
slaves a very large majority owned only a few, from one 
to five. When slaves were held in numbers sufficiently 
large to give character to the plantation, some results 
were easily discovered. The estates were large and this 
necessitated overseers or subordinate managers, the con- 
centration of labor on a few crops, and prevented that 
desirable subdivision of land which improves agriculture 
and gives to a country an independent yeomanry. Popu- 
lation was sparse, roads were neglected, free schools 
could not be established, and the estates became a species 
of baronies, where the lords of the manor exercised an 
inferior government quite apart from the general civil 
jurisdiction. 

Slaveholders and Statesmanship. 

As a rule, the owners of many slaves and of large plan- 
tations were men of intelligence, of masterful qualities 
and often of much culture. Governing a community of de- 
pendents in such a way as to temper control with modera- 
tion and justice, to exact obedience and steady labor with- 
out provoking ill-feeling, rebellion, escape or anarchy, to 
insist upon order and authority and have, at the same 
time, cheerful and productive work and great affection, 
developed a habit of government at home which was 



ripened into statesmanship on larger fields. The isola- 
tion of plantation life and unshared responsibility stimu- 
lated individuality, self-reliance, acting on one's own judg- 
ment. In most matters of domestic concern there was no 
public opnion to which they could be referred, no tribunal 
for arbitration, and the master was, under the general 
laws of the Commonwealth, the sole and supreme legisla- 
tive and executive authority. This independence, self- 
government, and the presence of a subject class made the 
slaveholder the vigilant, sometimes hasty protector of the 
honor of himself and family, the stern advocate of limita- 
tions upon the powers of the civil government and the 
valiant defender of the liberties of his race. Hence, 
Burke's well-known tribute to the unconquerable love of 
freedom and manly insistence upon their rights, of the 
Southern colonies in the earliest days of conflict with the 
mother country. 

The Neighborhood Store a Civic Center. 

That slaveholders were the leaders in politics and held 
many influential positions in the State and the Federal 
governments is not strange. Where people were segre- 
gated and families were sometimes miles apart, the court 
house, the militia musters, the elections, the public speak- 
ings, the rural churches, were the places and the occa- 
sions for the discussion of agricultural needs, of prices of 
products, of taxes, of conduct of representatives and pub- 
he officers, of neighborhood affairs. The shire-town was 
generally a small village and offered no inducements for 
assemblages of the people, except when twice a year the 
Circuit Courts were held. In nearly every country 
neighborhood was a store where everything of a miscel- 
laneous character was kept, and at the same place was the 
post office. Every day persons, not kept at home by 
necessary work, were at these stores, and everything per- 
taining to human life was brought under consideration. 



What more natural and proper than tliat those who had 
wealth, were men of afifairs, were familiar with markets, 
read newspapers and traveled, should be consulted and 
deferred to. When, as often happened, there were present 
those who had been in the Legislature or in Congress or 
had visited the seaport cities to buy merchandise or sell 
produce, they would be called on for information or opin- 
ions, and they were listened to with respect and atten- 
tion. My earliest recollection is associated with spon- 
taneous, somewhat unpremeditated, gatherings of farm- 
ers at stores and the conversational discussion of ques- 
tions far beyond my boyish comprehension. 

Majority gi? Farmers Without Slaves. 

It is worthy of mention that nearly every person look- 
ed forward to the time when family work or cares would 
be lightened by the ownership of a slave. Still, I have 
known hundreds of lawyers, doctors, merchants, farmers, 
preachers, mechanics who did not in their own right pos- 
sess slaves. The majority of farmers had no slaves, but 
sometimes hired them by the year. These farmers worked 
their own fields side by side with the negroes and their 
children. The widely prevalent notion that the cultivation 
of cotton and tobacco at the South is, or ever was, de- 
pendent upon negro labor is an error, unsupported by 
fact. Far more than half of the present ten million bales 
of cotton have been produced by white labor. The stig- 
ma of "poor whites," so often used in derision and con- 
tempt, is unwarranted and grossly unjust. Many non- 
slaveholders and persons of small means have, in peace 
and in war, signalized their lives by all the virtues which 
ennoble humanity and advance civilization. 

Illiteracy Not Ignorance Then. 

Illiteracy was unfortunately not confined to the 
negroes, as sparseness of population prevented State sys- 
tems of free schools. It would be an erroneous inference 



that these illiterate people were wholly uninformed. The 
assemblages to which reference has been made were valu- 
able schools and educatory in a high degree. In ante- 
bellum days political discussions prevailed universally. 
Candidates for governorship, Congress, for Legislature, 
often for other offices, engaged in joint discussion before 
the people. Appointments were made for public speak- 
ing, time was divided equally among contestants or be- 
tween parties, and for hours there was earnest attention 
to debates upon the most important questions. Let me 
illustrate. In 1847 ^^^ 1853, when a candidate for the 
Alabama Legislature, education, finances, taxation. State 
aid to railways, were discussed. In 1855, when the Know- 
Nothing or American party, was seeking power in the 
State and Federal governments, the tenets and purposes 
of that party»were presented by the chosen champions on 
each side. In 1856, as a candidate for Presidential elec- 
tor, and in 1857 and 1859, when seeking a seat in Con- 
gress, making forty or fifty speeches in the district, the 
issues were internal improvements by the general Gov- 
ernment, distribution of the proceeds of public lands, veto 
power, tarifif, expenditures, power of Congress over the 
Territories, "Squatter Sovereignty," and in i860 and 1861, 
right and expediency of secession and relation of the 
States to the Federal Union. In those days, while parties 

No BossiSM, No Contributions, No Corruption. 

were distinct and party feeling was strong, party ma- 
chinery hardly had an existence ; "bossism" was unknown, 
voting by sections was unheard of. As a general rule, 
each man voted as an independent citizen and bribery or 
corruption in elections, when it occurred, made the place 
and persons a by-word and a scorn. My contests for the 
Legislature and for seats in the Federal and Confederate 
Congress cost me practically nothing. The whole ex- 



8 

pense was covered by a few hotel bills, announcement of 
candidacy in the newspapers and the printing of tickets. 

Not a Dollar for Campaign Expenses. 
In the eight times I sought the suffrage of the electors 
of county and district and State, I did not pay a dollar 
for campaign expenses; no such contribution was asked 
or expected, and I never knew of a dollar being paid for 
a vote or a nomination. 

No Social Divisions Among Whites. 
There was in the ante-bellum days no perceptible social 
division between slaveholders and non-slaveholders as 
classes. No sharp lines of separation were drawn be- 
tween them. In marriage, in visiting, in office holding, 
in professional or other employment, no question was 
raised as to the ownership of slaves or interest in this 
species of property. I recall several members of Con- 
gress who held no slaves. Merit, respectability, virtue, 
was the open sesame to dinners, entertainments, marital 
relations. Color drew a broad and ineffaceable line of 
demarcation. The least taint of inferior racial blood 
operated semper ubiqitc as an exclusion. Piety, church 
membership, was not the social standard, but integrity 
and proper treatment of slaves were. I have known 
wealthy men, according to the estimate of wealth in those 
days, indicted and convicted for the cruel treatment of 
their negroes. The counts of the indictment were insuf- 
ficient food and clothing, over work and harsh and un- 
usual punishment. The marriage relationship was 
sacred. A person divorced for other cause than the awful 
sin of adultery was tabooed. Separation of husband and 
wife was tantamount to social proscription. The family 
was the unit and relationship of the worthy to a remote 
degree was recognized, and the bond of fellowship em- 
braced all except those who offended the laws of decency 
and honestv. 



Pure Anglo-Saxon Blood. 

The white population of the Southern States was An- 
glo-Saxon. Homogeneity was not much disturbed by 
alien immigration. It often excites remark and surprise 
to find that Southerners know their kin in different States 
and have such minute personal knowledge of many famil- 
ies. 

Hospitality a Characteristic. 

Home was sacred and the dearest place on earth, and 
Christmas was the time for reunion, from grandparents to 
grandchildren. It w^as not uncommon to see from twen- 
ty-five to sixty relatives seated at the bounteous board. 
In the country, with a sparse population, clubs and 
theatres did not exist to seduce young men from parental 
supervision. Between parents and children the inter- 
course ordinarily was unconstrained and affectionate. 
Schoolmates often spent the night with their fellows, and 
this neighborly courtesy was freely reciprocated. Co- 
education in the country schools and academies was uni- 
versal, and no harm but much benefit came from this 
companionship. Hospitality abounded and was a charac- 
teristic trait. There was rarely a single night for years 
when there was not under the roofs of my neighbors a 
welcome guest. The entertainment was without formal- 
ity, and the guests were treated, and acted, as members 
of the family. With the slaveholders, or with such of 
them as had a number of dependents, the cost and trouble 
of entertaining were almost nil. The table for the family 
bountifully supplied needed no additions. There was Ht- 
tle economy, perhaps much waste, in the food provided, 
for what was unconsumed by the "white folks," to use the 
common phrase of the black people, was used in the 
kitchen, or in "the quarter," as the village where the ne- 
groes had their houses was called. Gardens supplied 
vegetables ; the orchards, fruits. Corn, ripe or green. 



peas, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, watermelons, etc., were 
in the fields. Besides cooks and maids and butlers, etc., 
the children, too young for outdoor w-ork, or selected for 
skill and intelligence, were on hand to do superfluous or 

House Parties of Seventy. 

extra work. The entertainment in the country included 
horses. I have been at houses where seventy guests, with 
nearly as many horses, were cared for during three or 
four days. The one-crop system, pernicious in the light 
of political economy, left but few products for market. 
When cotton, tobacco, sugar, rice, and sometimes wheat 
and corn were sold, nothing else had a marketable value. 
To sell milk or butter or vegetables, was an unknown 
commercial transaction. Watermelons, apples, peaches, 
cherries, turnips were free. At least, persons traveling 
on the road, did not regard it as wrong, or forbidden, or 
any violation of rights of property, to enter orchards or 
fields and take wdiat was wanted for immediate personal 
use. This prodigal living has often been condemned, and 
is described here to give a true picture of the South. 

No Isms, No Skepticism. 

The country churches have been mentioned as furnish- 
ing opportunities for talking over questions of common 
concern. Conflicts as to the Sundays of worship were 
avoided as far as possible, and accessible places, within 
six or eight miles, had a general attendance. Ecclesiasti- 
cal or denominational differences, while fully recognized, 
did not interfere with social or political affiliations. 
Neighborliness, kinship, personal friendships, did not al- 
low ecclesiastical estrangements. The religion was of the 
accepted orthodox character. The new isms were un- 
known or promptly rejected. Infidelity or skepticism, 
used in a broad, undefined sense, was regarded with hor- 
ror and not unfrequently made synonymous with untrust- 
worthiness. Sickness in a family called forth practical 



sympathy and helpfulness. P\inerals or burials had the 
presence of the whole community as a mark of respect or 
to honor those highly esteemed. 

Reciprocity in Kindness. 

Agricultural life evoked much helpful cooperation in 
cases of exigency or special need, and these services, 
cheerfully rendered, were always returned in full tale. 
Not to reciprocate put one as much without the pale as 
if he had committed a dishonorable act. 

Snakk-head Railroads. 

That useful vade mecitm, the World's Almanac, gives the 
total track of railways in the United States at 245,238 
miles, and the passengers carried as 514,982,288; 904,633 
miles of telegraph wire, with 61,398,157 messages, and 
772,989 miles of telephone wire. When we consider how 
our country is now covered with a net work of railways 
and telegraph and telephone wires, it is hard to realize 
how recent was their origin and h.ow rapid has been their 
progress. In my boyhood days, railways were few and 
short. In Alabama, in 1843, there were only two, one 
around Muscle Shoals, and the other between Mont- 
gomery and Franklin, and it was put down on string 
pieces with flat-iron bars, which, torn up by wheels, 
occasionally projected into the cars, impaling passengers 
on what were termed "snake-heads.^' In 1843, ^'^ ^outc to 
Harvard, I traveled from Augusta to Charleston by rail, 
built nearly all the way on trestle work, and by steamer 

The Stagedriver a Chance for the Pen and Pencil. 

from Charleston to Wilmington. Much travel in those 
days was on horseback, or in hacks, or picturesque stage 
coaches, which signalled their arrival in towns and vil- 
lages, and notified the taverns of number of passengers 
by long tin horns or by making more ambitious music 
on bugles. The stagedrivers knew everybody on the road. 



carried packages and messages, and were sometimes the 
confidants of country lasses and bashful beaux. The 
Bonifaces are often drawn in character sketches, but the 
stagedriver of the olden time, a typical class, has escaped 
portraiture by pen or pencil. Romances of the road arr 
unused material. 

Shinplasters. 
In these days of plentiful gold and silver, inquiries are 
sometimes made of me about shinplasters. During the 
financial stress, beginning with 1837, in the absence of 
a sound circulating medium of "specie" or bank notes, 
banks, corporations, towns, stores and individuals issued 
small notes for the fractional part of a dollar, to be re- 
deemed in current bills when the sum of five dollars was 
presented. These notes, usually printed on thin and 
worthless paper, were circulated far and wide, and when 
mutilated, as soon occurred from handling, or sent so far 
away as never to return, the issue of the notes enured to 
the benefit of the voluntary banker. A number of these 
notes are now before me, and were issued in South Caro- 
lina, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, one, on the 
Union Bank, Pulaski, Tennessee, sent out in 1837, is 
decorated by a pretentious stage coach, full of passengers, 
drawn b}- four stylish horses. 

Caricatures on Slavery. 
On no single phase of life or civilization has the South 
been so much misunderstood and misrepresented as on 
the subject of slavery, in its varied and manifold connec- 
tions. The caricatures of the relation of master and ser- 
vant in popular fiction, the honor of canonization con- 
ferred on John Brown, whose acts can find excuse or pal- 
liation solely on the plea of insanity, or fanaticism run 
mad ; the descriptions of superficial observers like Dickens, 
Hall, Featherstonhaugh, have made impressions which, 
however unjust, are almost impossible of eradication. 



13 

That there were cruel taskmasters, that slavery had in- 
defensible features and consequences, no reasonable per- 
son can deny, any more than he can deny cruelty in hus- 
bands, neglect in fathers and oppression in employers 
since the world began. The relation of master and ser- 
vant was not one, generally, of hardship or cruelty. After 
the exaction of labor, not paid for in money wages, the 
interest of owners dictated such treatment as would not 
impair the productiveness or value of labor, nor depreci- 
ate the property. Apart from humanity, selfishness made 
it desirable and necessary, in food, clothing, shelter, ser- 
vice, to consult the physical well-being of the slave. A 
standard of morals and of intelligence, as far as com- 
patible with the condition of servitude, also enhanced his 
pecuniary and industrial value. Bearing in mind the fact, 
the biblical fact, the legal fact, the traditional fact, that 
property in man existed and was to be maintained, the re- 
lation of master and servant was one, in the main, of good 
treatment, kindness and affection. 

A Radical Revolution in Southern Views. 

Of course, it is difficult for persons outside the South, 
or born since 1861, to form even a partial conception of 
slavery as it existed before secession. As well may the 
people of Cuba or the Philippine Islands, fifty years 
hence, be expected to understand the Cuba and Philip- 
pines of 1898. Since i860, Southern sentiment and law 
have undergone a radical revolution. Nine hundred and 
ninety out of every one thousand white people in the 
South rejoice that the negro is unalterably free, and about 
the same ratio regards slavery as a wrong, or a gross 
economical blunder. As Mr. Lincoln's policy and earnest 
effort at deportation were not accomplished, a less ratio 
concedes that citizenship was an unavoidable consequence 
of emancipation. Now comes "the rub" which Northern 



14 

Negro Suffrage an Indescribabli; Blunder. 

opinion fails to grasp. Suffrage was not a legal nor a 
desirable sequence of emancipation or citizenship, and has 
been a curse to the South, to the whole Nation, and so 
far as the negroes are concerned, in their bewildering 
freedom, an indescribable blunder. Denounced as the 
South may be for its persistent opposition to negro suf- 
frage in the aggregate, it may as well be understood that 
the conviction will increase in intensity unless deporta- 
tion or diffusion, or some other effective agency, reduce 
the evils of the congestion of the black population. The 
Southern people approve the limitation of the elective 
franchise as ordained by Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina. The more 
intelligent and conservative regard an educational quali- 
fication as an indispensable condition precedent to voting, 
and coincide with the most worthy and remarkable leader 
of his race, Mr. Booker T. Washington, in wishing the 
same restriction made applicable to both races and en- 

Impoverished Whites and Negro Education. 

forced with equal justice and impartiality. Hard as has 
been the burden, which the general Government, wicked- 
ly, cruelly, suicidally, has refused to aid the South in bear- 
ing, thus abdicating the logical and patriotic duty in- 
separably connected with emancipation and citizenship 
and suffrage, every Southern State has established a pub- 
lic school system, sustained by taxation, conferring equal 
school privileges upon the two races. The Bureau of 
Education says the South has expended since the war 
over $100,000,000 for the education of the negro. It 
should not be forgotten by the censorious that fully $90,- 
000,000 of this money came out of the pockets of the im- 
poverished white people. 



15 

- The Virulenci; of Race Prejudice. 
The friction between races at the South finds painful 
parallel in New York, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. It is but 
fair to remember that the negroes, in the Northern towns 
and cities, where mob violence occurred, were insignificant 
in numbers. Lawlessness and revenge were far less ex- 
cusable, in the light of relative provocation, than in the 
South where the negroes outnumbered the incensed white- 
people. The virulence of race prejudice overwhelmed the 
forces of law and order in communities where the in- 
habitants were, in part, of New England origin, and where 
an appeal to competent civil authority should have had 
prompt and protective response. Some one has said that 
there is no alchemy to get golden conduct out of leaden 
instincts. Infuriated mobs violate recklessly all laws, hu- 
man and divine. Social, political and industrial upheaval, 
and the ill-advised and revengeful reconstruction legisla- 
tion have failed to produce legitimate results because of the 
former good feeling between master and servant and the 
patient and good conduct which, in the aggregate, has 
marked the two peoples. The inexcusable lynchings and the 
atrocious crimes which caused them have been surprisingly 
few, and are not justly chargeable against the great mass of 

A Tremendous Push Upward. 

either race. The exemption from strikes at the South, 
from the lawlessness of organized and assertive labor, the 
beneficial effects of good climate, fertile soil, rich mineral 
resources, the spur from impoverishment to greater indus- 
try and economy, the better prices for some agricultural 
products, have lately given the South a tremendous push 
upward. Every patriot should labor for a better under- 
standing of his fellow citizens, for the obliteration of the 
last vestige of sectional prejudice and bitterness, for the 
enlightenment of opnion, for the consummation of equal 
and exact justice to both races, for the uplifting of Ameri- 



i6 



can citizenship, for the strengthening and ennobHn^ of all 
influences which will perpetuate free, representative insti- 
tutions, add to our prosperity and happiness, and make 
more lustrous and beneficent our example to all peoples, 
struggling for free government, based on intelligence, 
integrity and capacity. 



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